


love and communication (you were here for me)

by livepoultryfreshkilled



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: (both minor) - Freeform, Austic Mike Hanlon, Author of Color, Gay Mike Hanlon, Gay Stanley Uris, Geordi La Forge and Data halloween costumes cause they r NERDS, Halloween, M/M, Mike Hanlon Character Study, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Racism, Positive Description of Florida, its implied but not explicit, jewish author, mlm author, reddie is mentioned but let me tell u. i am sick of white boys, steven king had racist idiot disease so now IM giving mike a character, this is supposed to be slow burn but lets see how much patience and stamina i have, we pining we self conches
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-09
Updated: 2020-01-31
Packaged: 2020-11-28 02:35:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20959046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/livepoultryfreshkilled/pseuds/livepoultryfreshkilled
Summary: Mike Hanlon doesn't know how to speak. He doesn't know if he should ever learn. He doesn't know if he'd have anything to say.If he did, though, Stan would like to hear it.





	1. Mike Thinks About Boys

**Author's Note:**

> title from Love and Communication by Cat Power

Mike Hanlon didn’t talk to boys. He didn’t talk to girls, either. He didn’t talk to anyone outside of the farm, actually, just his grandfather and the help and the sheep, and he wasn’t even supposed to talk to the sheep, and he didn’t know how long he would’ve gone on like that if Beverly Marsh hadn’t thrown a rock at Henry Bowers’ head at this very quarry on a sticky summer day in June, giving Mike contact with the first real friends he had ever known.

Mike kicked a rock. _The first real friends he had ever known_. He didn’t exactly know how to feel about that fact. From an outsider’s view, Mike must seem like a recluse, an outcast. A loser, lowercase “L”. And he was, of course, you can’t not be a loser when you’re a homeschooled black kid in Maine who smells like raw meat all the time, but that didn’t mean he wanted to be. Like he didn’t hope kids would come up and ask to play with him or invite him to their houses or to a movie. Of course, he _knows_ no one is going to talk to the homeschooled black kid who smells like raw meat all the time if he doesn’t talk to them first, but how is he supposed to? What do people even say to each other nowadays? He doesn’t suppose anyone wants to hear him wax lyrical about whether animals can think or share his thoughts on intelligent life in space. But it’d be nice if maybe, just once, someone could ask him how he was when he drops meat off at the deli, or when he bikes home from making deliveries. Maybe a boy, a nice one, with bright eyes and clean hair. But he’d kept it all wrapped up for so long, all his thoughts, his theoretical compliments and insults and jokes and stories that he prepared for his future friends, that when he finally got them… he didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know where to start. He didn’t know what was too much and too little and what kind of person he should be to them because he had never been a person to anyone else before.

He tossed a pebble into the water.

What do you do when you’ve been quiet for so long you’ve lost your voice?

He supposed Richie might know. Richie, with his grotesque glasses and coffee-colored freckles (he must have at least a million) and his never hesitating trashmouth. Richie, who was the first one to ask Mike over to hang out, the first one to give him a nickname (Heya Haystack, how’s life on the farm), kiss his cheek (all in good irony) and crack a hilarious joke about his mom (the joke wasn’t funny, but the look on Richie’s face when he remembered what happened to Mike’s parents sure fucking was). If Mike’s words felt like they were water all plugged up by a stopper, Richie’s must feel like a flooding basement, every single thing he ever had filling up the room until everyone either swam or drowned in his uncontrollable energy. (Mike felt a memory resurface of a bathroom covered in blood and the echoing of children’s voices from the drain.) Richie, who gets this scared and sad look on his face when no one hears his joke, like he’s the Invisible Man and will never be seen again. Richie, who shows his love by measuring his words, stemming the flow, sharing the subtlest care like a secret meant for only you.

Mike smiled softly as he thought of his friend. One time, Richie caught Mike crying at this very quarry over something he couldn’t say, and turned his tears into peals of laughter with the dirtiest limerick Mike had ever heard, like Jesus turning water into wine. Poetry. Ben would understand Mike’s problem, and he could probably help, too. If Richie flooded rooms with his words, then Ben drained them, carefully placed syllables to evoke a feeling from inside that you cannot name, but still wish to hold on to for as long as possible. Ben, with his soft eyes and soft voice and soft smile; Ben, the other new kid on the block, who never needed Mike to say anything for him to understand. Ben, with his words like silk thread, tying together all of the people that make Mike _want_ to learn how to speak. Ben’s voice was concise and planned; his narratives and emotions poignant, thought-out, meaningful. Mike felt inadequate: his voice would be unfiltered and rambling, surely, after being cooped up for so long in the cluttered attic of his mind. What could he have to say that could measure up to Ben’s prose, or even Richie’s humor? Even if he could come up with something, he wouldn’t be able to share it. His words always got stopped up, caught in his throat. 

Mike sighs and watches the water go over and around and through the logs in the quarry and thinks of something Bill had said: “speech is like a river; there are logs, and there are dams, but the water will persist nonetheless.” Bill! No one knew speech like Bill Denbrough. Bill has never shied away from his own voice, just worked harder to say what he needed to. His words must be so important, Mike considered, if he is so insistent on breaching that stutter to say them. He has to think out his voice, carry it to its destination, force himself to be heard, and it commands such respect that at times Bill’s voice can make Mike feel weak in the knees. His words aren’t urgent, necessarily, like Richie’s, but they are vital. They are not curt, but they are succinct. Bill would make a good writer, Mike thought. Bill could help him with finally conquering the barrier of his own insecurity and inexperience: hold his hand, help Mike take baby steps he needed to just _get the words out_.

Mike paused, nervous. What if he shouldn’t get help? What if it’s best for him to keep his voice to himself? What if, what if. What if his words would do nothing more than take up space, space that the others deserved more? Bill’s words were _important_. Important. Mike’s couldn’t be, he didn’t even have _words_, just thoughts and concepts, just manifestations of his need to be heard, not things that need to be told. Mike felt guilty, ashamed that he had spent so long considering taking up his friends’ time just so that he could figure out how to talk about aliens and other shit. If he didn’t know how to talk, he never would. Never should. Maybe he should leave, remove the empty calories from their rich and fantastic lives, maybe he should leave them all alone for their sake, maybe forever, maybe–

“How long have you been sitting out here?”

Mike was so startled he slipped from where he was sitting on the rocks and would’ve fallen into the water of the quarry if Stan hadn’t grabbed his arm.

“You gotta be more careful, Mike.” Mike stood up. Stan didn’t let go of his arm, but softened his grip. “Cause I just want you to know that I’m not getting my fucking hair wet, so if you drown, you drown, alright?”

Mike smiled. He couldn’t think of what to say, so he just held Stan’s eye contact. Stan had nice eyes, brown ones, like the color of leather or fresh baked bread. They were soft and bright, like Stan, who was always afraid only to be braver. Stan, who had a mind and heart too big for his wiry limbs and curly hair; Stan, who everyone knew would fly like a bird one day. Up, up, and away, into the stars and past the moon. Mike realized he must’ve been staring too long when Stan looked away and blushed. He had let go of Mike’s arm. Was Mike supposed to say something? Was this awkward?

“Why are you here?” Well, now it was fucking awkward. Glass houses, dumbass.

“Same reason you are, Mike. Getting away from all the riff-raff and roughnecks,” he let out at a small laugh at his joke that Mike didn’t really get and reached into the backpack he had on to pull out a plastic-wrapped comic book. “Want to read with me? I’ve got X-Men.” Mike grinned.

“I’m not riff-raff?”

“Not a roughneck, either. C’mon, I know a spot.”


	2. Comics and the Future

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hated to see you sad when I left  
There's just no good in that but the good part was  
That I came at all 'cuz I don't venture out  
Into the lives of the new  
I want you to come along for the ride  
How long will you stay for your whole life  
You just know you should  
Can you tell me can you tell can you tell  
If there is something better  
'Cuz you know there always is  
There always is

The “spot” was quite literally that, a spot, a circle of soft moss Stan had deemed up to his standards enough for him to take the issue out of its plastic covering.

“This is issue number 246,” Stan said _two hundred and forty-six,_ the way no one who wasn’t Stan did, “Wolverine and Storm are still in New York. MasterMold is new, but I think Storm is stronger than him because she’s stronger than Colossus.” Stan had taken on the voice he brought out when he talked about flight patterns and extinct species, quick and defensive, like he wanted to get his point across before someone cut him off or made fun of him. Mike was always very attentive when Stan used this voice, because he wanted to let Stan know he didn’t need it. Not here, not with him.

Despite how much Mike liked the X-Men, he was sort of glad he didn’t know much about them. If he did, Stan probably wouldn’t explain as much, and Mike liked hearing Stan explain. Stan liked explaining, too. Mike wondered if Stan liked when he listened to him, or if he just liked being heard. Mike wondered if Stan liked him. Mike liked Stan, who had stopped explaining and was waiting for a question.

“Have you read the comic already?” Bad question! Mike felt like this every time he had a conversation, felt like he was losing at a game he didn’t know how to play. His question exposed him, how much he wanted this, how embarrassingly deeply he wanted to do this, to read an X-Men comic with a friend. And of course Stan read it, he wouldn’t save it for Mike.

“No. I,” Stan cleared his throat, looking nonchalantly at the cover of the issue like it wasn’t just an excuse to avoid eye contact. “I wanted to read it with you.”

Mike couldn’t help smiling, _level up,_ because Stan wanted to read it with _him_. Stan, who took care of books so well, his bird book, his comics and his old newspapers, like they could feel. He was so gentle and thoughtful with them, and it was so cool. So grown-up, so professional, and Mike noticed it all, the perfect pages and the preserved binding and the notes written in the margins in a neat handwriting Stan hated because he said it was a girl’s handwriting. Mike noticed how hard he worked, and he was so grateful that Stan trusted him with Uncanny X-Men “two-hundred and forty-six”, but you can’t just say all that to a boy you met three months ago at a rock fight. “I’m happy you did,” and he was, and he hoped Stan could tell.

Stan shifted himself so that he was facing Mike, even though he still wasn’t making eye contact. He smoothed down the corner of the issue. “Who do you like?” Mike blinked. “Of the X-Men. Who do you like best? I think Storm is the most powerful, but Wolverine is more,” Stan squinted, gesturing vaguely with his hand in a way that was just so Stan-like, “durable? In a fight of stamina, I mean.” 

Mike nodded. “Because of the metal skeleton. Adamantium.” Mike swallowed, nervous for no reason, an emotion he was becoming increasingly accustomed to feeling around Stan. “I think Magneto is cool.” Stan grinned, and Mike felt a warm surge at having said the right thing, and having meant it.

“Yes! Magneto is so cool! He’s way better than Professor X. Like, why should mutants forgive humans for something they haven’t even apologized for? Plus, blood has iron in it, so Magneto can basically control people, which is way better than mind reading.”

“I think it would be cool to read minds. And change the weather, too,” and Mike liked this, and he tried not to get his sleeves caught on the realization that he was having a conversation and tangled in trying to preserve it. “What about you?”

“Flying,” Stan answered so surely, like he had been born knowing it. “I would give anything to fly.”

“Flying,” Mike echoed, not unkindly. “Why?”

Stan laughed incredulously, not unkindly. “Are you kidding?” He grabbed Mike’s shoulder and looked into his eyes, his words so important to hear. “Freedom, Mike. You can go anywhere, any time, all on your own. You can go where no one else is and stay there, in the clouds, with the birds. You get to leave,” and at this, he paused, like he couldn’t fully express meaning with just speech, something Mike felt viscerally. “You get to go.” 

When he looked in Mike’s eyes he seemed concerned that due to the simplicity of his words he didn’t get the weight of his thoughts across.

“Do you,” Mike struggled, nervous, he felt the words being pulled away from his throat and the thoughts getting caught on barbed wire in his mouth, “Do you want to leave, or do you want to go?”

Stan got it (he got him). “Both, I guess. I want to leave here, but I have plans. Goals, aspirations,” he laughed again, the laugh he had for jokes no one got, “you know me. But not really destination-specific, you know?” Mike knew. “I want to leave, sure, but more than that. I don’t want my only accomplishment to be leaving Derry, but I sure as hell want it to be one of them.”

They must’ve gotten closer while talking, a magnetic pull making them lean towards each other, because they were two willows that create a perfect canopy of leaves, perfect shade, perfect hideaway. “What about you?” and Stan’s voice was hushed on this, like they were sharing secrets, conspiring, just the two of them.

“I want to go to Florida,” Mike said, and it was a plead, because it was important even if he didn’t know why. Florida was important. “I want to go because it’s far away. I want to go with somebody, on a long trip, and make it to an oasis,” Stan was looking at him– he couldn’t think about how Stan was looking at him right now. “Florida is, it’s made of gold and leisure,” that sounds so stupid, “and so many people go there for fun. And joy. And it’s not explained, why people see such joy in Florida, like it’s a good place to spend the end of their lives or a beautiful land of palm trees and sun and what if it’s a magnet, Florida, that attracts people who are missing things so that they can find them. It’s the sunshine state.” Mike was breathing hard, he realized, and he had never been more embarrassed in his life. He was thankful that, as his grandad said, "you can't see cherries in a chocolate bar," because if he was half a shade lighter Mike was certain he’d be lit up like a neon sign. _Oh God,_ he thought, _that's so stupid._ Mike had a planned response for the concept of Florida, but somewhere down the line in this conversation he must’ve thought ‘it’s just somewhere I’ve always wanted to go’ wasn’t good enough, important enough, so he elected to word-vomit down the front of Stan’s periwinkle button-up shirt. __

_ _“It’s not stupid!” Mike started, because Stan said it quite loudly with concern Mike had never heard him use before, and because he had no idea he had been talking out loud. He wondered, vaguely, if it was possible to die from embarrassment. _ _

_ _“It’s not stupid,” Stan said again, looking in Mike’s eyes, holding Mike’s face, like Stan would die if Mike didn't hear him, like he _means_ it, and Mike believes he feels like he shouldn’t, but he does. He can’t help it. Oh._ _

_ _They are so close. When Mike thinks this, he knows he means it in so many ways. They are so close. Sharing the same breath like it is the only one they will ever take. They are so close, leaned into each other, speaking in whispers because they have to, their words are precious. This is precious. They are precious. They are so close. Stan could kiss Mike right now, if he wanted to. Mike is shocked by this thought, how he wants Stan to. How much he wants Stan to kiss him. To want to kiss him. To move a bit closer, just an inch, but a mile. Close the gap. They are so far apart. They are so close._ _

_ _So close. Too close? Mike suddenly remembered personal space, how he doesn’t hug his grandfather, how men don’t hug each other, how men don’t kiss each other, touch each other, talk to each other, share near-silent whispers about comics and the future, and felt a wave of great shame wash over him. Was he crossing a line? Was he bothering Stan, making him uncomfortable, was he breaking the rules of the game? This closeness felt too good, too exhilarating to be allowed, and Mike moved back. Mike broke away, and it hurt more than he thought it could._ _

_ _Stan moved back as well. Mike looked at his feet, nauseous from the rollercoaster ride of elation to guilt, gilded by fear. They cleared their throats in unison, still slightly out of breath from– from what? They couldn’t name that, no one could. That was something that could not be felt by anyone else; it was new, it was frightening, it made them both so, _so_ aware of every inch of their skin. _ _

_ _And as they sat in the moss and silently longed to touch, and as the longing killed them, they said nothing. Until Stan decided to throw the world out the window and drop an absolute bombshell out of fucking nowhere._ _

_ _“I don’t like girls,” He swallowed, looking away from Mike. “And if I ever get married, I’ll marry a boy.” _What? Fucking what?__ _

_ _Mike would've been less stunned if Stan had jumped up and started clucking like a chicken. He had literally never had more questions in his life. Where is this coming from? Is that an option? Is that possibly related to how they were sharing the same breath (how Stan’s hand was on Mike’s face) a minute ago? How should Mike interpret that? Was Stan proposing? What about college, are they too young– Stan’s not proposing. No, Stan’s just throwing an insane curveball that hits Mike directly in the face for kicks. Was that a joke? _ _

_ _Stan was looking at him sideways, nervous and impatient, expecting an answer like he didn’t just say that he wanted to marry a boy. (Mike… was a boy. He very pointedly did not think about it.) That’s unfair! He can't just say that, break the rules like that, flip the board and throw the whole goddamn game out of the window and then expect Mike to ever think a coherent thought again, much less express one. And of course, Mike knew that staring mute and bug-eyed at Stan wasn’t what he should be doing, that the stiff silence was saying things that Mike knew he didn’t want to say, but he couldn’t snap himself out of it. It was like his body had turned to stone while his brain lit on fire. Can someone even say that?_ _

_ _Stan stood up very suddenly, cutting off Mike’s thoughts at the pass. “I’m going- I gotta go.” He knelt back down to put the comic back in its plastic case, rushed but not careless, because no matter the circumstances Stan could never be careless. He looked at Mike and opened his mouth as though to say something, then closed it. Stan, looking absolutely mortified, practically sprinted away. As he watched Stan’s backpack disappear between the trees, Mike regained his ability to speak._ _

_ _“Fuck.”_ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey sorry i haven't updated in so long! i was hospitalized and busy for a bit. im really happy with this chapter, though, even though i've sort of fallen out of love with the IT fandom. however, mike is so great to write and stan is too, plus yearning and shit. tumblr still @livepoultryfreshkilled (feel free to talk to me about these Boys) and my art tumblr is stil @cheezyart. PLEASE COMMENT. I WILL RESPOND. ILL DO ANYTHING FEEDBACK I BEG YOU

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr is @livepoultryfreshkilled and art tumblr is @cheezyart (ill b drawing art for this)  
likely irregular updates! im sowwy i have school.


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